Chapter 49: 58-59. Seven Chilly Seconds // The Demon Inside

Rorri

 

Once the children were seated, Rorri dimmed the lights.

He caught every prompt in the puppet show’s second act, flawlessly and joylessly executing his magic tricks to the kids’ consistent amazement. Though they oohed and aahed and giggled and clapped, their glee elicited only the hollow echo of mourning in Rorri’s chest. Adar was right. He was out of touch with his inner child. His parents never really played with him, and he wasn’t particularly good at making friends. He had always been solitary, the type to sit by himself drawing pictures in the dirt, while the other children ran and laughed together. Sometimes he would watch them, studying the rules of their games, just in case, but it was rare that they’d invite him to play, and when they did, he wasn’t any good, and they wouldn’t invite him again. Their games were stupid, anyway. They were always pretending to be soldiers in the War, chasing each other with sticks for swords, and Rorri hated hitting people. So, he kept to himself, and he drew his pictures, and even if he did make a friend, it was never long before they’d wander away—

 

His ruminations were interrupted

by the skull-piercing scream

that sawed through the opera house wall.

 

Seven chilly seconds ticked by. Every soul in the room flash-froze in that time. Even the children stayed silent, like mice in a field of snakes.

“Stay here,” Adar instructed, his voice cool and level. Then, without hesitation, he slipped over the half-door and disappeared from their sight.

“D’ya smell ‘at?”

On the other side of the wall, the screams multiplied, and the stampede vibrated the floors. Rorri sniffed the air intently. A burning stench wafted in from down the hall. Bilge sidled up to him and leaned in close.

“This ain’t right, mate,” he whispered to protect the room’s tiny ears.

“We n-need to get them out of here…” Rorri glanced nervously over the group. “If that’s w-what I think it is…”

“Ain’t got much time,” Bilge agreed.

The children watched the two adults with wide, shining eyes, fighting against their terror, like soldiers in the War. Bilge turned to the kids, commanding the aura of a hero. He quelled their trembling by his presence, alone. Even Rorri would have been fooled, but he knew his friend too well. He could see the uncertainty hiding in his finely quivering jaw.

 

Pak

(Incorporeal)

 

Their portraits still hang on the wall upstairs, a mimicry of immortality, faces never flinching, centuries frozen in place. To the eyes of a human, elves never age. Some elves forget that they do.

Grandmother’s painted, lifeless eyes linger on me, waiting. A wave of sickness sweeps my body, knocking me to my knees. It jostles my stomach, coats my throat, and seeps into my jaw. I spit on the carpet, heave, spit again. Nothing comes up.

“Ugh…”

I lean against the blue wall, painted purple by the red in my eyes—

FHUMP

—but it does not resist me. I tumble through it, landing shoulder-first on the floor, legs sticking out in the hall. Pain bursts through my battered bones. I moan…

Creeeeee…

…but wood sinks beneath her weight, drowning out the sound. The floor gives way to her every step.

Her toes swing into view, inches from my face, nestled in soft, filthy slippers. I halt my breath, clutching the weapon like a blanket. She hovers over me and sniffs the air like a bloodhound on a hunt. Her chin dimples in a grimace. She grunts, sighs, and keeps going.

She lurches down the hall, to the left, towards the seventh door, following the same light-painted path. I crawl after her, dragging my skin across the carpet. A glass of red wine sloshes in her hand, and a drop makes it over the edge, falls and soaks into the floor. There are many splotches just like it in this corridor, splotches I don’t remember. I catch up to the stain. It smells sweet, familiar… Of course. This is Grandmother’s perfume. A single breathy chuckle escapes me, scraping across my lungs like sandpaper. I get it now. It’s so obvious…

She opens the seventh door and disappears, leaving it slightly ajar. I hear her drop into the bed. From inside leaks her sharp, raspy, shuddering breaths, punctuated by tense silences and fits of low muttering.

I stop just outside the room, desperate to catch my breath, to slow the pace of my heart. If I stand, I will surely fall. I’ve come too far to fall. I surrender my face to the carpet, cheeks pushed into my eyelids, loosen my lips and drool. I just need to rest my eyes, just for a minute…

 

Time escapes me, minutes or hours spent in a twilight realm, in some place I’ll never remember.

 

My eyes flutter open. A blizzard of dust dances in the light of the crescent moon, making room for me as I hobble in, as though it senses my presence, as though my body were real. The path forms a ‘T’ here. The start of it spills from the bed, a tiny waterfall of light, then splits in the center of the room, with one leg leading towards the hall, and the other, into the closet.

Everything is in its place. The chair, the desk, the zigzag door…

 

ba-dum. ba-dum.

 

Grandmother shudders and shimmies part way under the covers, soaking the red pillow with what oozes from her face. Her wrist hangs limp over the edge of the bed. The wine glass hangs loosely between her fingers, empty. I limp closer, quietly, so as not to rouse her, though I’m sure she can’t hear me anyway. She clutches something close to her body. A floppy black ear pokes out from between the crevice of her arm.

No…

This doesn’t make sense. She took it. She took it away because she hated it. She said I was too old.

Grandmother groans and rolls over, revealing its button-eyes and its soup-stained face.

I drop the weapon. The soft carpet catches it silently. I ball up my fists. My whole body shakes. I inhale sharply through my teeth and clutch my head, scratching my scalp, building up skin beneath my fingernails.

“Why did you…?”

She jumps, yanked from her fragile slumber. The wine glass falls, dregs trickling onto the carpet.

“It’s not fair…”

I stumble, eyes mottled by the gray child’s tears. Grandmother looks around, but my voice doesn’t seem to reach all the way. She squeezes Boog tighter and curls up, settling into the bed.

“It’s not fair!”

I can’t contain my blubbering. She can’t even hear me. I can’t take him back. I cover my ears and rock back and forth, back and forth, but my body hurts so much. I want to stomp my feet and cry and scream but it hurts so much.

“Why did you take him from me?”

I’m barely intelligible, whimpering, just like a child…

 

it used to belong to me

 

“You…?”

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I stop rocking, overcome by stillness. The familiar voice’s whisper covers me like a cool blanket of snow. I bury my eyes in my knees and let my pants soak up my tears. I’m so tired. I shouldn’t have ever left. I should have stayed home with Kano…

I pick up the weapon, turn away, and crawl towards the closet, across the white rug stained with the gray child’s blood, following the light. I just want to hide in the dark, where it’s safe… Nobody will find me here.

I pass through the zigzag door, and a dusty, sweet, familiar scent fills my nose. The path disappears when it reaches the wall... or so it seems. It sticks out just a hair past where it should be flush with the wall – the edge of a secret door, so precise it could only have been cut by magic.

 

“Stupid child…”

 

The hairs on my neck stand up. I turn towards her voice. Through the crack in the closet door, I see Grandmother, still in the bed, still clutching my toy, staring right at me with deep, deep valleys cut between her brows.

 

“Look at what you’ve done to me!”

 

She gnashes her teeth. A bubble of snot inflates in her nostril, disappears, and trickles down the groove above her lip.

 

“Look at what you’ve done…”

 

She bites the pillow, muffling her moaning. The closet door is mostly shut, and everything is still red… She can’t see me. Who is she talking to?

 

“WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?

YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED HIM!

I TOLD YOU NOBODY WOULD LOVE YOU, LOOKING LIKE THAT!

YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO ME!

I HAD IT ALL PLANNED, AND YOU RUINED IT!

YOU RUINED IT! YOU STUPID WHORE!

YOU THREW IT ALL AWAY!

HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?

HOW COULD YOU?

How could you…

How…”

 

Does she do this every night?

I watch, petrified, as her shoulders rise and fall, as her body jerks and twitches like there’s a demon thrashing inside her…

 

she hides it in an empty room where nobody will find it

she feeds it table scraps and she beats it until it’s quiet

 

The weapon’s silver-trimmed handle sears my palm, its intricate veins flashing bright red, bathing the closet in its light, and—

 

BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM

 

—I blink, finding myself inches from Grandmother’s face, peering into her wide, red, wet, dead eyes. If it weren’t for the whistling air in her nose, she would be indistinguishable from a corpse.

 

sweet boy…

you’ve been through so much

what do you want to do?

 

“I just want to talk…” My voice cracks. I sway in place, trembling.

 

then talk

 

The familiar voice provokes a tingling in my head, as if it were stroking my hair. I close my eyes… I can’t remain a ghost any longer. It’s time.

I clutch the weapon tightly. Focus on its warmth…

 

R E A P P E A R

 

Pip.

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